Phil 160

W.D. Ross, “The Right and the Good”

What makes Ross a Deontologist?

• Ross rejects classical Utilitarianism because he rejects hedonism

• Further, he rejects the very idea of consequentialism (the idea that the right-making characteristics of an action are its consequences).

• Ross is a deontologist because he holds that what makes an action right or wrong is intrinsic to the action itself.

The concept of duty:

• Ross contends that the moral point of view looks to the past and present, not to the future.

• What is relevant to what you ought to do is not what will happen as a result, but rather what your duty is in some case, which depends largely on what the past and present.

“Prima facie”

• This is where Ross departs substantially from Kant. • For Kant all duties are categorically imperative. For

Ross, duties are ‘prima facie’.• ‘Prima Facie’ means loosely “at first glance” and is an

epistemological notion. A truly prima facie duty is a duty that looked at first like it was a duty, but was not in fact a duty.

• What Ross means is that duties are ‘pro tanto’. A pro tanto duty is a duty that is a duty, but that may conflict with and/or be superseded by other duties.

Ross’s Prima Facie Duties:

• Ross maintains that there are a variety of duties, and provides a short list that is not intended to be an exhaustive list, but that covers some of the duties that we have.

• Those duties are broken up into two categories: duties we owe to others, and duties we owe to ourselves.

Duties we owe to ourselves:

• These are the duties of Prudence:– Self-improvement, physically, mentally, morally,

etc.– Note that these aren’t duties to do whatever you

want, they are duties to do what is best for you.

Duties we owe to others…

…based on past actions:• Fidelity (keeping promises

we have made, maintaining personal relationships we have entered into

• Reparation (compensating people for wrongs we have done them)

• Gratitude (doing good to those who have done good to us)

…not based on past actions:• Beneficence (helping others

in need when we can)• Non-malevolence (doing no

harm)• Justice (giving everyone

what they deserve, and not withholding what people deserve)

When duties conflict:• When duties conflict, we must determine which

duty is more important. • There is not a fixed hierarchy of duties. For

example, our duty of benevolence in saving a child from drowning would outweigh our duty to meet a friend for lunch if we happened to see a child drowning on the way to lunch. However, a promise to buy one’s child her ballerina slippers for dance class would outweigh a duty of benevolence in giving some money to a broke traveler.

General tendencies

• Some of the “prima facie” (pro tanto) duties have a tendency to be more stringent than others.

• For example, the duty to do no harm to others tends to be more stringent than many others. We seldom owe anything to ourselves or anybody that requires harming another person.

Value Pluralism

• This approach of Ross’s brings into the picture a concept called “Value Pluralism”

• Instead of having only one reason to act (for the utilitarian, maximizing pleasure; for the Kantian, acting in accord with the categorical imperative) we have many reasons to act, some of which are more important in some contexts than in others.

• Ross’s system pays for its plausibility with its complexity and uncertainty.